


That Dear Perfection

by IdrisTardis7878



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Captain Swan - Freeform, F/M, Fluff, Smuff, Smut-adjacent, Vignettes, originally written anonymously as gift fic, semi-au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 05:47:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16948164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IdrisTardis7878/pseuds/IdrisTardis7878
Summary: "What’s in a name? that which we call a roseBy any other name would smell as sweet;So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,Retain that dear perfection which he owesWithout that title."-Romeo & Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2





	That Dear Perfection

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted anonymously as CapSwanAnon on tumblr as gift fics in various other tumblr users askboxes. Then reposted on my own tumblr as a series of unrelated vignettes on November 8, 2016. Author's note from the November 8, 2016 post as follows:
> 
> A/N: So…okay. A fair while ago now, when I was very new to Once and the CS fandom, I was a bit nervous about posting any of my fic for this amazing couple. I’m not quite sure why I was so shy about it at the time, but I was…yet I wanted to dip my toes into the CS waters, as it were, and I also wanted to send little gifts to several of the many amazing fic writers who I admired who were already doing brilliant work in the fandom (and still are). So out of those combined desires to slowly test out writing fic for Captain Swan and to honor these wonderful writers, CapSwanAnon was born.
> 
> But now that I’ve stepped fully into this fandom and am much more comfortable writing for this pairing, I feel like it’s finally time to “unmask” myself. This fic isn’t really a single narrative – it’s the series of 9 drabbles I sent as CapSwanAnon to various other authors, in the order of their original writing/posting, plus one brand new part at the very end written especially for this post. I cleaned up some of the formatting, but didn’t really change any of the content of the drabbles themselves, so there are small references in some of them that have now been rendered slightly AU. But I wanted to leave them true to the way they were originally posted.
> 
> So, whether you’ve seen them before in their Askbox!fic form or this is your first time reading them, I hope you all like these little vignettes of Emma musing about the things that draw her to Killian. Enjoy!!
> 
> (p.s. Each new drabble begins after the -/- mark).

_It’s his hips_ , she thinks, idly admiring their trim shape as they disappear into the waistband of his dark jeans. He has a terrible ( _wonderful_ ) habit of walking around her apartment in the mornings, his shirt somehow mysteriously “missing” as he gets ready for the day.

She suspects ( _knows_ ) that he’s doing it on purpose because he’s somehow intuited ( _open book, darling_ ) that this behavior makes it damn near impossible for her to keep her eyes from tracing the way his waist dips in near the base of his spine, the barest hint of the curve of his ass visible where the jeans ( _belt unbuckled, top button undone, damn him_ ) are riding a little bit low as he strides back and forth brushing his teeth, looking for his keys, making her coffee.

It’s even worse ( _better, oh so much better_ ) from the front, his abdominal muscles pulling tautly in and sharply defining a delicious v shape, teasing and tantalizing her before all of it is covered up by skin-hugging denim. It’s all so easy ( _too easy, really_ ) to imagine stepping in front of him, stopping him in his tracks, and sliding her hands down, down, down, and  _in_ , cupping his ass in both hands and pulling him towards her. It’s a miracle, really, that she manages to restrain herself as often as she does (and if she’s late to the station a few mornings a week, it’s her damn business –  _even if it **is**  all his fault_).

-/-

 _It’s his hair_ , she muses as they curl together on her new couch in the evenings, the television – that neither of them is really focused on – flickering in front of them. The thick, dark strands – so different from her own sunshine brightness – seem to attract her like a magnet.

She can’t keep her hands away from it – when they kiss, she can’t help but sift her fingers through it, seeking the curling strands at his nape (a well-timed tug there will have him groaning into her mouth and nipping at her lower lip like clockwork). And every time they tumble together into her bed (it might as well be their bed, he stays over so often now), the sight of his head, dark hair tousled (her handiwork, she thinks with pride) moving down her body, his mouth tracing over her skin, never fails to make her heart beat faster.

And afterwards, when they’re pleasantly exhausted, his head pillowed on her chest, and she presses a kiss to his crown, it’s the warm, familiar scent of sea and sun and home that warms her heart and lulls her into contented slumber.

-/-

 _It’s his hand_ , she reflects, languidly watching him as he turns the pages of the latest novel on his seemingly unending reading list (who knew that his mending fences with Belle would lead to stacks upon stacks of books invading both his room at Granny’s and her new apartment – she’s even found the odd volume at the station or in the bug from time to time).

His fingers are long, elegant despite showing unmistakable signs of centuries of hard work, and even the many gaudy rings he wears cannot disguise their natural grace. It has become habitual for them to weave their fingers together when holding hands (it started the night Elsa accidentally trapped her in that ice cave and just never stopped), and it still astounds her sometimes how much comfort she draws from curling her own fingers around his, how much security she feels from tapping her thumb against the base of his as they clasp hands and anchor themselves to each other (locking themselves together that extra bit as if daring the universe to pull them apart ever again).

His hand is a warm weight on her shoulder or at the small of her back (or wrapped around her waist) as they walk through town together, hips bumping with every step they are so close. And she’s come to eagerly anticipate the way he always tangles his hand in her hair as his lips meet hers, before his fingers slide down to trace her jaw and he inevitably runs his thumb over the dimple in her chin. She’s  _never_  minded that he has just the one (though the experience of holding both of them – and being held by them both – on their first date is a memory she cherishes because she knows it meant the world to him).

The longer she knows him the more she admires his dexterity and the ingenious ways he has devised to counterbalance its missing mate. (He may be missing a hand but make no mistake, he lacks for  _nothing_ ).

-/-

 _It’s his eyes_ , she realizes as she peeks at him furtively out of the corner of her own, trying (futilely) not to be caught staring. The blue is deep, deep,  _so_  deep that they make her think things she formerly would have dismissed as total silliness. (She never was a giggling schoolgirl, but he makes her feel like one).

She finds herself drawing comparisons between them and the sea he loves so boundlessly, the cloudless sky of a Storybrooke summer day, the vibrant petals of the flowers he brings her (stolen, she’s fairly certain, from Regina’s garden because, well… _pirate_ ), even the feathers of the birds that still frequently visit her mother. (She categorically refuses to admit that she’s bought both blouses  _and_  lingerie simply because the color reminded her of the brilliant blue of her pirate’s eyes).

More than the color, though, it’s how he looks at her – sometimes gazing at her so intently she swears she feels like he’s touching her. She’s no longer surprised that she can read his every emotion and thought in them – reverence, adoration, sadness, self-loathing, happiness, want, pride, protectiveness, fear, lust, and that other l-word (the one that used to scare her, but where he’s concerned only fills her with warmth and anticipation) – that open book thing goes both ways, after all.

They twinkle with mischief far too often, and she can’t decide if she prefers that or the dark intensity they exude when he’s pinning her to the bed ( _their_  bed), or perhaps the sleepy haze he blinks away each morning. They’re topped by the most ridiculous eyebrows (she secretly finds them adorable), which seem to move almost independently of each other – whether they’re arching in disbelief, waggling while he drives home one of his outrageous innuendos (that she not-so-secretly finds amusing), or furrowing endearingly in confusion. Despite his recent wardrobe change, his eyes have remained perfectly kohl-rimmed (perfectly piratical), and on more than one occasion she finds herself envying his skill in its application (though she’d never admit it to him).

No, she’s never been one for clichés, but somehow it doesn’t surprise her when she eventually finds herself pondering that old adage about eyes being the windows to the soul (and wondering if being upwards of 300 has somehow intensified his soul’s power, for every time she locks eyes with him she feels like she sees the very depth of him).

Sometimes she wonders what he sees when he looks into hers, but then he’ll look at her across a crowded room and their eyes will lock and she knows (she simply  _knows_ ) that for him (as it is for her) it’s like looking in a mirror.

-/-

 _It’s his neck_ , she thinks as the pads of her fingertips skim gently across the warm skin there, seeking the reassuring thrum of his pulse (what was before an absentminded habit has become more purposeful since she returned his heart) before sliding further back and curling into the dark strands of hair at his nape (a gentle scratch of her nails there nearly always results in a little grunt that sends warmth blooming low in her belly).

It was one of the first things she noticed about him, all those years ago, her eyes tracing the deep, deep vee of his absurdly unbuttoned shirt even as she held a knife to his throat. And for a long time, whenever they’d been in the same space she’d tried (and failed) to ignore the perfectly bronzed skin that peeked out from under all his pirate trappings (seriously, she had  _no_  idea how he managed to stay so freaking tan in  _Maine_  of all places).

He’d told her once that he’d retained his “youthful glow,” and though she’d scoffed and rolled her eyes at the time, secretly she’d agreed.

It’s her favorite place to bury her head – whether they’re curled up together and she burrows her nose in tight against the spot just behind his ear, or it’s after a climactic battle with the newest town villain and he’s scooped her up for a bone-crushing hug. The distinct scent of him (she can’t help but associate it with a warm ocean breeze) never fails to soothe her, calm her racing heart, and imbue her with a sense of safety, peace, and home, that is so strong as to almost be tangible.

She’s inescapably drawn to the defined ridge of his collarbone every time they’re intimate, wondering even as she licks and sucks along the warm skim there whether this will be the time he’ll cover up the hickey she’s inevitably giving him ( _knowing_  all the while that he never will). No matter how hard she tries to deny it, she can’t help but get a little thrill when she spots the purple marks edging out from the collars of his patterned button downs.

The charms that hang on the long chain around it are remnants (reminders) of his long,  _long_  life, and she finds herself playing with them absentmindedly whenever her hand drifts over his chest. Curling her fingers around them, she reels him in closer, closer, ever closer to her (she can  _never_  get him close enough).

-/-

 _It’s his mouth_ , she realizes as she pulls back, gasping for breath, knees feeling like they might fail her at any moment. She refuses to look at his face, knowing his typical smug grin will be lurking at the corners of his lips (and his eyes will be shining with that familiar, mischievous twinkle), choosing instead to stare at the spot where her fingers are wrapped tightly around the collar of his jacket (she can feel the reassuring thumping of his heart just under where her knuckles press against his chest).

Her own heart stutters in response as he lifts his head and brushes the lightest of kisses against her forehead – a tender gesture that’s the polar opposite of the desperate hunger with which they’ve just been devouring each other.

It’s unfair really, that he should have a mouth like that – he can make running his tongue along the inside of his lush bottom lip into something positively obscene – and it proves to be distracting at the most inopportune of times. Whether his head is thrown back, mouth stretched wide as his deep, resonant laughter escapes at something her father said, or his lips are pressed tightly together in an attempt to restrain his fiery temper in the face of one of their many new foes (the slight twitch in his jaw is always a dead giveaway that he’s not as calm as he’s trying to appear)…it’s simply difficult to tear her gaze away and focus on the matters at hand (and no matter how hard she tries to hide her reaction, she just  _knows_  the cocky bastard can see right through her).

The way his accent trips off his tongue, the gentle lilt wrapping around his words, is utterly captivating. When they’re alone together, she swears it drops at  _least_  an octave – the deep, gravelly tone is nearly hypnotic. (It is borderline embarrassing, the way she involuntarily shivers every time he murmurs her name, but the myriad emotions he manages to infuse into that one small word sear her heart like a brand).

His stubble (which, upon closer inspection in the morning sunlight amidst the warm, rumpled sheets of their bed proves – improbably and adorably – to be ginger) scrapes along her skin in delicious ways, leaving a faint pink blush in its wake and setting her entire body aflame.

Often she wakes with a slight jolt, still blinking sleep from her eyes and wondering what it was that brought her out of her dreams. Then she feels that stubble burning a path over the soft skin of her lower abdomen, moving slowly but steadily downward. As he progresses to her most intimate places, interspersing playful nips and deft licks with lingering kisses, she wonders if, in fact, she’s still dreaming (how, how,  _how_  is she so lucky that this is her life?)

They’ve shared so many kisses by now, and all of them (save the one, she now realizes, where he was fighting a power-drunk madman for control of his body and free-will) have been amazing, unique, and perfectly  _them_. She cannot now imagine a day without his kisses – moreover, she doesn’t want to (a “one time thing,” indeed).

-/-

 _It’s his scars_ , she considers solemnly, watching him as he sits up and swings his legs over the side of their bed before stretching his arms up and over his head, his back arching languidly in the pale gray luminescence of the early morning. She observes – with keen interest – the sinuous movement of his muscles beneath skin that though perpetually tanned is also littered with a variety of long-healed wounds.

Some of these marks were immediately apparent from the moment they met (like the one that graces his right cheekbone, the one she can’t help but trace with eager fingers every time they kiss), others he revealed to her in time (she will never,  _never_  forget the first time he removed his brace in her presence), each one another entry in the twisting and turning (and too-often painful) narrative of his long, long life.

Sometimes he offers up the story that goes along with the mark in question (a sharp line skirting along his right hip was the result of a barely-deflected cutlass wielded by a rival, the puckered twist of tissue on his left shoulder the work of an arrow that thankfully missed its intended target a few inches lower).

Other times, she doesn’t ask, just traces her fingertips along them (the long since faded lines crisscrossing his back that are clearly the consequence of a flogging, the thin but jagged arc curving high along his left thigh that barely avoided his femoral artery) and follows her soothing hands with the brush of her lips until he gathers her in his arms and buries his face in her neck. Those nights, they fall asleep curled tightly together, his fingers combing softly through her hair in repetitive, lulling patterns.

He jokes about them sometimes – his voice just slightly tight, his smile not  _quite_  reaching his eyes when he teasingly calls himself a “broken down old pirate” and tells her he’s lucky she deigns to spend her time with him.

On those occasions, she kisses him harder, pulls him into their bed with greater urgency, spends time worshiping his body before pressing her lips to his chest, directly above his madly beating heart, and whispers that she’s the lucky one, before exhaustion claims her. Truth is, they’re both lucky.

-/-

 _It’s his tattoos_ , she muses, her gaze carefully tracing over him the way her fingers itch to, but she holds herself back from touching him, enjoying the uninterrupted time to simply observe him while he slumbers.

He lies quietly next to her – his body relaxed in sleep and delightfully free of clothing, his dark head buried in her other pillow, only his profile visible to her as she faces him. The rumpled sheet is tangled around his hips, slipping just low enough to reveal the twists of dark ink arcing gracefully along his hipbone.

For someone who’s lived the pirate’s life that he has – and who has lived as long as he has – he has surprisingly few tattoos. In fact, there are only three. The dagger-pierced heart she first spotted so long ago fills his right forearm, a tangible reminder of the love so viciously ripped away from him. She’d known about it almost as long as she’d known him – its presence and significance woven intrinsically into her understanding of who he is.

He only has two others – and they are both revelations in their own ways. She saw them both the first time they slept together, one blissfully quiet night that they spent tucked away in his room at the inn learning what made each other unravel.

The reproduction of a military insignia – naval, Liam’s – rides high on his left shoulder blade. After, when they were lying spent and sated, curled around one another, he told her – in soft, halting tones – that his brother had a habit of clapping him (rather forcefully) on that shoulder. She let her palm rest, warm and gentle, over the inked marks as he spoke.

His third, and final, tattoo, the one she’s gazing at now, was perhaps the biggest surprise of all. Rising low along his right hip, a graceful bird – unmistakably a swan – is drawn in delicate swirls and curves of ink. Despite all the other –  _very_ pleasurable – activities they’d engaged in that night, it was the sight of the long neck and elegant wings that had brought a blush to her face.

She’d realized, later, that the three marks had something in common – they were each a reminder of someone he’d lost (or, in her case, believed he’d lost). His way of commemorating the people who’d touched his heart deeply and who that heart had ached for. She’d asked him about that, once, and his tightened jaw and sharp jerk of a nod had nearly brought tears to her own eyes.  

He shifts in his sleep, moving closer to her as if instinctively seeking her warmth. She finally gives in to her urge to touch him, reaching out and sliding her fingers over the spot where her namesake rests on his skin, hitching herself closer to him as his eyes blink open. His sleepy gaze is trained on her in an instant, before he yawns and asks her if she’s alright. “Never better,” she whispers, tucking herself under his chin, close to his heart.

-/-

 _It’s his honor_ , she knows. As she watches him with Henry, witnessing the way he instructs her son in the proper way to steer the Jolly, she can see it shining forth from him as brightly as the dazzle of the sun on the bay. She also knows that he cannot see it as clearly as she can – sometimes, she thinks he does not see it at all, continuing to believe only the worst of himself even after all that he has done to pull himself away from the darkness.

He may only see the bad choices he’s made, and muse for far too long on nefarious acts he committed during the centuries he spent mired in pain, pursuing his vengeance. But she sees that he started down that path out of grief and unwillingness to serve a king who was the worst sort of liar, a king who had withheld information that could have saved Liam – if they’d known the truth about Dreamshade, Liam might’ve been more careful, or, she suspects, he might have defied their king himself.

She knows, too, that he stayed on that course once he lost Milah – his sorrow deepening, his fury strengthening, the shadows gaining a greater foothold – not out of any great love of piracy, but because it afforded him the greatest chance of finding a way to defeat the enemy that had wounded his heart so thoroughly.

What she saw (what she sees  _always_ ) is a man who – far from falling prey to the allure of piracy for its own sake – sought to avenge the losses of two of the most important people in his long, long life. And how is there no honor in that pursuit, she wonders?

She’s seen this honor, this nobility, at the core of him for far longer than she’s willing to admit. She’s somewhat embarrassed to think about it now, but she saw it at the very beginning, even when she’d left him shackled to the top of a beanstalk. It was precisely  _because_  she wanted to believe in him – was afraid she already did – that she had to leave him there.

( _“I can’t take a chance that I’m wrong about you,”_ she’d said – well, she hadn’t been…he’d proven her right over and over since then, and she’s often thought with regret of all the time she wasted not trusting her gut when it came to him).

She’d told him that she was going to choose to see the best in him, knowing that he had a hard time seeing it in himself. And she saw it every day – in the way he supported her without fail, the way he cared for her son, the way he was trying to set right his past mistakes (he could only focus on the fresh errors he felt he’d made in how he’d handled things with Ursula, but she could see the goodness in his efforts, and appreciate the wrong he’d succeeded in righting).

It’s not that he’s perfect – to be honest, she’d find perfection irritating (perhaps that was her own piratical streak piping up). But he’s her balance, her anchor – a partner, in all senses of the word – and what they’ve found together is something she’d never dreamed she could ever have. If she’s his light in the darkness, well, he is most definitely hers. And in the end, it doesn’t really matter if he can’t see it in himself, because she does – and it’s as clear as day.

-/-

 _It’s his heart_ , she thinks, remembering the staggering sense of wonder she’d felt when she’d cradled it –  _his actual, beating heart_  – in her hands. (Seriously, what  _is_  her life?!?!). She’d been curious (but not really surprised) to see the brilliant redness of it as it glowed there in her palms, lighting up the corner of Granny’s back hallway.

The dark spots that had swum within it were completely understandable, given the life he’d led – but the bright and dazzling red had far outshone them. The appearance of his heart was simply the physical manifestation of what she’d known to be true of him since the moment he’d dried her tears near a campfire in the Enchanted Forest during their adventure into the past – or perhaps longer ago than even that if she were being absolutely honest.

And that’s that Killian Jones is a deeply good man, even when it’s not easy for him to be. Even when it would be easier for him  _not_  to be. Even when few people expect him to be. And  _her_  heart – the one she would have gladly, willingly split with him had that been necessary to retrieve him from the Underworld – swells with a fierce joy every time she sees him accept that fact just a little bit more fully.

Whether the mantle of hero sits easily on his shoulders or not, the truth is the truth.

(Every time they embrace, she’s taken to pressing her hand over the spot where she returned his heart to his chest – the gesture as much an attempt to subtly remind him of his worth as it is to reassure herself that his heart is still where it should be).

And now, as they lie together safe in the soft, warm confines of their bed, his chest pressed to her back – both of them equally, wonderfully bare, a light sheen of sweat cooling on their skin – she can feel its pulse as clearly as if it resided in her own body. Truly, after all they’ve been through, everything they’ve shared together, it’s as if it does.

But then again, why shouldn’t it feel that way? His heart’s been hers – and hers his – for longer now than she can properly remember.

-/-FIN-/-


End file.
